An aide brought back orders from General Worth. Hannibal saw him come galloping, and soon knew what was up.
“Reveille is to sound at eleven-thirty to-night, and we’re to move camp in the dark.”
“Then what, Hannibal?” Jerry asked.
“Tell you later. A battle, I expect. Old Fuss and Feathers will have a scheme.”
The men slept on the ground without tents, Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant Grant did not undress, for what was the use? Reveille sounded at eleven-thirty, the assembly followed, and the companies fell in, the men yawning and grumbling. The night was pitchy dark; the column went stumbling up the road, with the soldiers staggering aside as if asleep on their feet. It seemed as though that night’s march never would end; and at daybreak, when halt was sounded, everybody was glad indeed.
But what a panorama that was as the sun rose. It was well worth staying awake for. Yonder, below the slope up which the night’s march had led, there appeared the camps of the two other divisions, near the little village in a level bottom or valley. The river issued from a gorge in the mountains and flowed rapidly down past the village, on the left or south. There were precipices and high hills on both sides of it; and on the right or north the National Road, obliquing from the river and village, zigzagged up into the hills, and crossed the mountains.
This was the Pass of Cerro Gordo. The highest crest—a huge round-topped hill—four miles distant in the midst of the other hills along the road, was Cerro Gordo itself: Big Mountain, or Telegraph Hill. The officers said that with their glasses they could see the Mexican flags floating from its very summit, over batteries, and over a stone tower.
“Gin’ral Scott, he got to shed his coat an’ get to work, I reckon,” declared Pompey, who had appeared at each night’s camp. “How we-all gwine to trabbel on with dose Mexicans rollin’ rocks down on us? An’ dar ain’t no road ’t all odder side the ribber. ’Spec’ we mought have to make wings an’ fly ober dose mountings. Don’t see no odder way.”
Aha! The troops below were already in motion. At any rate, one column was moving out, and filing into the hills on the north of the road. Marched like Regulars; must be the Second Division! Was the battle about to begin, before the First Division received orders? But when, after a hasty breakfast, the division hurried down and camped near the Third Division, soldier talk explained matters.
The Second and Third Divisions had been here two or three days, lying low and wondering how to get past Cerro Gordo. When the Third had joined the Second, General Twiggs had decided to storm Cerro Gordo, anyhow, and had given instructions to General Pillow. He was a fighting man, this General Twiggs. But General Patterson had heard and had galloped forward from his bed to take command and veto the orders. Being a major-general, he outranked Old Davy, who was only a brigadier. The men had been rather glum at the idea of storming Cerro Gordo from the road—that looked like a sure-death job; and when they learned that nothing would be done until General Scott came in, they felt mightily relieved.